I’ve spent a good chunk of the last couple weeks putting together a player projection system, my primary goal at this point simply having one exist so that, in the future, it can be improved upon. It’s built on a bunch of regressions that take into account the player’s stats from last season, his basic demographics, his team’s stats from last season, high school rankings and ratings, mock draft projections, and awards.

It cannot handle (yet) transfers, freshmen (although we have something else for some of them, as you’ll remember), redshirts, teammate activity, and coach activity. So quite a bit. But we have something to start with, and that’s something we didn’t have not too long ago.

I’ll get into some of the more interesting things I found in creating these projections as time goes on. For now, I’m giving you the projections for (1) every BCS All-Conference returnee, (2) every mid-major first-team All-Conference returnee, (3) every low-major conference Player of the Year, (4) projected top draft picks by Draft Express, and (5) ten guys who have awesome stats but fit none of those categories.

Two of the guys projected for the most regression are Doug McDermott and Isaiah Canaan, and it’s quickly clear what those three have in common: They all had fantastic, likely unsustainable shooting seasons in 2012. Some of their other numbers are certainly adjusted, but McDermott’s projected to drop from 49 percent to 38 percent and Canaan from 46 percent to 40 percent - a more impactful drop, considering the number of threes Canaan attempts. Jordan Taylor ran into this buzzsaw last year. Neither of those two should have bad seasons, by any means; McDermott probably still has the best projections of anyone. But don’t expect either of them to have another gear they’ve been holding back.

The biggest improvements are expected of Le’Bryan Nash, Joshua Smith, Adonis Thomas, and James Michael McAdoo, and the similarities between those four are equally clear: Projected high draft picks coming off unimpressive seasons tend to improve quickly. Last season, for example, we saw big jumps from Thomas Robinson, Patric Young, and C.J. Leslie.